Playing Pretend
by Lifelike
Summary: Sawyer liked to play Pretend because it was the only place he felt right. [SayidSawyer SLASH!]


**A/N:** Damn you Maddie. D: Another LOST fic. She came up with the plot bunny. I'm just the writer, I suppose.

Enjoy. It's a bit AU (I took out Sawyer getting stabbed in the vein with the knife and I also took out Sayid's mini-journey for the purposes of character warping. XD)

* * *

Sawyer had a past, and quite an extensive and painful one. His mind was a gigantic suture, several poorly patched scars across his memory. Since coming to this island, they'd exploded open from their stitches, filling him with dread and sadness... and fear, above all things. Fear that he was going to die on the blasted island and fear that the other people on the island, those from the plane, that is, would figure out who he really was, what his inner enigma was.

So he played it cool when Jack and Sayid approached him asking for medicine of some sort. Sawyer didn't have it. He wouldn't hold someone's life at stake for something he wanted. But bless his heart when he saw Sayid standing like a loyal puppy dog at Jack's side. Sawyer felt a pang of hurting jealousy when he came to the epiphany that Sayid did not like him. And Sawyer, as much as he wanted Sayid to like him, had to pretend that he didn't like him either.

Jack tried negotiating, but if there _was_ a person Sawyer couldn't stand, it was Big Man Jack. Jack had seemed to take control since day one, and Sawyer didn't like to be controlled. He liked to be the one doing the controlling. There was something very attractive at having a whole camp of people waiting for your okay to do something, a whole forty-eight, the size of a tribe, almost, willing to do anything for you. But then, Sawyer wasn't as hardy and needed as Jack was. Sure, he had a purpose. He was there to keep tempers high and to keep everyone alert and to keep everyone else from fighting amongst themselves, but he didn't bring people back to life or cure them. Naturally, this made Sawyer rather bitter, and he led the two on like dogs on a foxhunt, slowly easing them into the belief that Sawyer had the medicine. He was good at luring people like that. He was awfully good.

He didn't exactly _tell_ them he had the medicine, he led them to believe he did by never denying the fact that he had it. His lack of cooperation annoyed Jack. He commissioned Sayid (_perfect_, his mind cooed when he heard this) to come with him. Sayid knew torture, Sayid worked for Saddam Hussein, and Sayid... was perfect at making Sawyer talk. At least, incoherently, that was.

What Sawyer didn't expect was to be punched, then bound. But still, even though he asked for a kiss from that girl, whatserface, Kate, all he wanted was a kiss from Sayid. After all, Sawyer only pretended to hate him.

They shoved bamboo spikes under his fingernails and he screamed, but one couldn't call it a scream so much as a groan of pain. Sawyer tried to dampen the pain by imagining to himself. Imagining that Sayid would take the spikes from his nails and kiss his neck and be gentle. Sawyer wasn't used to gentle. He imagined Sayid's smooth hands traveling down Sawyer's chest, sliding his shirt off his shoulders, continuing with dotted, soft kisses along his collarbone. Sawyer could imagine it so vividly that he suppressed a moan.

The torture was over as quickly as it was started, and Sayid and Jack left Sawyer limp at the tree. Sawyer receded to his imagination. It was the only place he felt good, right, justified.

In his daydream, Sayid came back and untied him and whispered apologies. And Sawyer would be bloody and sweaty and Sayid's lips would brush his forehead and down his cheek, caressing his jaw bone, and their lips would meet. The kiss would be perfect, better than any kiss Sawyer had ever shared with a woman, with Sayid's hands gently holding Sawyer's head. They'd kiss, kiss, kiss, over and over, and Sayid would kiss Sawyer's neck, go lower and lower. Sawyer would pull his head back, exposing his neck, and Sayid would take advantage of this, kissing the stubbly neck.

Then he heard Kate in the clearing. These people just didn't give up, did they? So he told her he would tell her... if she kissed him. He thought she was smart enough to know he didn't have the medicine, but she just kissed him. So Sawyer played "Pretend" again, and suddenly Sayid was kissing him, soft, manly lips upon his own, and Kate tried to pull away but Sawyer only drew her (him) back with his lips, hands bound and chafing but without pain. And Kate finally pulled away, and Sawyer was pulled back to cold, painful, bitter reality.

Sawyer told her he didn't have the medicine. And he got a punch in the face.

It knocked him out, and he couldn't remember who untied him, or when. All he remembered was a cool towel being pressed against his forehead. He groaned. His head hurt and his fingers were throbbing painfully. A hand pressed the towel in various areas of his forehead, pressure being applied and released. It was rather pleasant, enjoyable.

He groaned again, and a soft voice said, "I know you're awake." Sawyer recognized it immediately.

"Sayid," he whispered hoarsely, forcing the noise out of his throat. He cracked his eyes open barely, just to see Sayid's smile. He smiled back. "That hurt, those stupid spikes."

"It was only to get you to talk," Sayid responded, grabbing Sawyer's hand to peer at his bloodied nails. "Sorry. If you'd just told us you didn't have the medicine, I wouldn't have had to hurt you."

"It's all a game, Sayid, _all_ a game." Sawyer sucked in a sharp breath as Sayid started to clean his wounds with water and a rather dirty towel. "That _hurts_, you know?"

Sayid looked up, his eyes filled with sincerity. "Sorry, but these will get really nasty if they are not cleaned. I'm going to send you to Jack the minute I'm done here."

Sawyer closed his eyes. Vaguely, a thought crossed his mind. _Should I tell him?_

Sayid was getting up to leave, and Sawyer called, "Sayid, wait..." The man turned around, looking down at Sawyer, and Sawyer, for a fleeting moment, thought he saw hope in the man's eyes. But he decided not to chance it. "I think you should know that you may be a fighter for the other team, but... you should use those techniques on someone who deserves them."

Sayid smirked. "Okay. I'll only use them on you."

* * *

Where in the world was this going?

Sayid sat down on the fallen log, on the end that was not rotted, and wiped his hands. What was he doing? What was he denying himself?

Shannon was great, but Shannon was not Sawyer. Shannon had stick legs and was a bitch. Sawyer had manly attractiveness, smelled of musk, and was an asshole. Even though Sayid was not shallow, he preferred Sawyer's enticing rugged manliness over Shannon's girly bitchiness any day. He preferred the side of Sawyer that only Sayid saw, the almost gentle and dreaming side, the one that no one observed.

With the exception of Sayid, of course.

He noticed that Sawyer was always staring off in the distance if he wasn't reading, watching the waves or looking at his hands. Sayid thought that was beautiful: a rough hard-hearted man who was also a dreamer.

There was an underlying fascination Sayid held for Sawyer, this strange enchantment that Sawyer was more than he seemed, that something happened to him. Sayid always wanted to know what it was. He always wanted to help him, to soothe him, by placing soft kisses on his lips and telling him it would be okay, that showing emotions was okay, to be human was okay. Sayid wanted that, wanted to press his lips to the soft spot under one's ear and breathe across his cheek as they lie slumbering in the jungle, or by the caves, or on the beach, at night or in the day. He wanted to hold those rough hands and coax Sawyer into being a person again, a person with emotions.

Sayid used to be cold, but the things he'd seen turned him. He was no pansy but he wasn't disconnected either. Girls loved it. Shannon loved it most.

Sayid didn't despise Shannon, but he wondered what pleasures, what delights, what happiness he denied himself when he chose Shannon over Sawyer. Shannon liked to kiss him, kiss him lots. And Sayid always wondered if Sawyer's lips were hard or unbelievably soft, and whether or not he was a good kisser. Sayid retreated to the depths of his imagination to find these answers.

Sayid played "Pretend".

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**A/N:** Hope that doesn't sound too rushed. D: I need to get this done so that I can go to bed. :0

Reviews are... a necessity. Kthnxbai.


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